HOLMES LADY in the WOODS by EUGENE

LADY in the WOODS

by EUGENE H. HALVERSON

                I remember when mother was so very sick and in the hospital and I knew she had a close call but I didn't know how close.  She told us that she had died and her spirit left her body.  I can't remember the exact order of her story.  She said she met her father and mother and they were waiting for her.  She told of a passage way and great happiness and contentment.  When she looked back, she could see her body and all of us standing there.  She said she was floating above us.  Unable to bear our sadness, she returned to her body and soon recovered.

                A few years later she became sick again.  Shortly before she died, she asked my brother Paul if she could come back from the spirit world to see him.  Paul said "yes", but I don't think he thought it was possible.

                Paul was living on a large wooded farm in Missouri, a beautiful place that had a stream, a pond, rolling hills and trees.  Paul had always spent a great deal of time in the woods, but now he was not alone.  He felt that he was being watched.  Many times during the next year, a young lady would watch him in the woods.  Not only would he feel her presence, but he would know her exact direction.  First he ignored her and later he would try to make contact, but to no avail.  She would be there one moment and gone before he could blink an eye.  The lady resembled his wife, Agnes, but he knew it wasn't her.  At last realizing who it might be, Paul walked up the hill to where she was.  Not lifting his eyes to see her, he only tried to listen to her message.  Although no verbal message was passed between them, Paul had an overwhelming feeling of peace and contentment.  He knew he had met his mother once more and she was all right.  This was her last visit.  Later when Vivian gave him a photograph of his mother taken when she was a young lady, he recognized her as the "Lady in the Woods".